JamesPCSchool: DFS Chapter 1 - Overview and Preparation

before reading this chapter, you may read the related articles below

DFS Chapter 1 - Overview and Preparation

DFS Chapter 2 - DFS Configuration on the First File Server - FS01

DFS Chapter 3 - Test the Shared Folder "IT"

DFS Chapter 4 - DFS Configuration on the Second File Server - FS02

DFS Chapter 5 - Test the shared folder "Business"

Distributed File System (DFS)

0. Overview

0-1. What is DFS

The Distributed File System (DFS) functions provide the ability to logically group shares on multiple servers and to transparently link shares into a single hierarchical namespace. DFS organizes shared resources on a network in a treelike structure.

0-2 DFS roles

Role service description
The DFS namespace and DFS replication are role services in the Archive and Storage Services roles.

DFS namespace
Allows you to group common folders on different servers into one or more logical structure namespaces. Each namespace appears to the user as a single shared folder with a series of subfolders. However, the basic structure of a namespace can contain multiple file shares, and they are located on different servers and multiple stations.

DFS replication
It allows you to efficiently copy folders (including DFS namespace path reference folders) across multiple servers and stations. The compression algorithm used for DFS replication is called Remote Differential Compression (RDC). The RDC will detect changes to the data in the file and then have the DFS overwrite only copy the changed file blocks instead of overwriting the entire file.

Practical application
You can achieve the following goals by using DFS namespaces and DFS replication:

DFS Namespace Provides a user-focused folder namespace for accessing and storing files. You can share basic file sharing on different servers and websites to improve usability and performance.

DFS replication Cross-LAN or WAN networking to efficiently process folder content between servers.

1. Lab Preparation

1-1 Environment set up

Before doing the lab, we need to set up the lab environment. The lab environment is as the table below:

Domain Name: JamesLab.com
Domain Administrator: sysop

Computer Name	DC01	FS01	FS02	PC01
OS	Win server 2016	Win server 2016	Win server 2016	Win 8.1
IP Address	10.0.0.1	10.0.0.3	10.0.0.5	DHCP Client
Roles	DC DHCP	File server DFS	File server DFS
CPU	2	4	4	2
RAM	2	4	4	2
HDD	C: 50 GB	C: 50 GB	C: 50 GB	C: 40 GB
		D: 10 GB	D: 10 GB